Empathy toys “the new textbooks”

Sensing his schoolmate was frustrated by the task in front of him, St. John’s High School Grade 8 student Kohl Clarke reached his arm out and offered a moment of encouragement.

It is moments like that, vice-principal Cree Crowchild says, that show a new initiative designed to teach the notion of empathy to young students is working at his north-end school.

“Everybody has empathy in them and it can’t be taught in a textbook,” Crowchild said. “It has to be shown, it has to be learned by example and it has to be nurtured.”

St. John’s is the first school in Winnipeg to make use of so-called empathy toys, the brainchild of Winnipeg-born entrepreneur Ilana Ben-Ari, whose company 21 Toys touts a belief that “toys are the new textbooks.”

In short, the empathy toys create a dialogue between students, coaxing them to work together to get through tasks, and to find a shared language to do so. The result, Crowchild said, is an 85% drop in office referrals due to conflict in the three years since the school has been using the toys.

“We don’t have cross-cultural conflicts. That’s very rare,” Crowchild said. “But I think what is happening is we’re creating a culture of understanding and that stems from empathy. Empathy is at the root of everything.”

Mayor Brian Bowman met with St. John’s students in October and plans to do so again in January. He said it was people at St. John’s who reached out to him in January when he called on the city to make progress in light of a Maclean’s magazine article pegging Winnipeg as the country’s most racist city.

“One of the things we heard when we held our ‘One’ summit (on racial inclusion) is empathy is a big part of the solution of how we move forward as one community,” Bowman said. “One of the reasons why we’re so excited is they’ve had a huge reduction in bullying as a result of empathy games and it demonstrates in real terms that it can make a real impact on changing people’s behaviour.”

The success of the program – St. John’s enrolment in early grades has risen dramatically, Crowchild said – has lead St. John’s to create a 21 Leaders program, of which Clarke is a part, that reaches out to feeder schools in the area.

“I felt like once I understand somebody, once I understood the game, then I think I’m going to understand what is going on for the person and how they’re feeling,” said Clarke, 13, who wants to implement the lessons in his home life where he has four siblings.

“… I still want to work on my listening skills and listening to my family, friends or what anybody else has to say. Just stop, and just wait and just listen.”

Thesis project sparks worldwide trend

What started as a thesis project to assist the blind has turned into a wide-reaching entrepreneurial success story for Winnipegger Ilana Ben-Ari.

Ben-Ari originally designed her empathy toys for the Canadian National Institute for the Blind while studying at Carleton University. Now the contraptions are being used in schools and homes worldwide.

The blindfolded game of co-operation encourages interaction and dialogue between participants.

“It’s in a very intense, sometimes fun, sometimes frustrating experience. But the real richness that happens is in the discussion that happens afterwards, where we compare what happened in the game to a real-life scenario,” Ben-Ari said from Toronto where her start-up 21 Toys is based.

Ben-Ari said the toys allow the user to “learn a lot about yourself and how you communicate with others.”

“The idea with 21 Toys was about elevating the value of social and emotional skills,” she said.

Ben-Ari estimates the toys are in about 1,000 schools in 43 countries, including Winnipeg’s St. John’s High.

Ben-Ari, whose father Marvin and grandparents Teddy and Marie Muller still live in Winnipeg, is a north-end raised Winnipegger who still finds it surreal her creation is being used in her home province to open important dialogue.

“I get photos now from Winnipeg and I’m getting photos from Singapore and from all over the world. It’s pretty phenomenal,” she said. “Outside of Ontario, Manitoba is the province with the most amount of empathy toys, which is so exciting to me. Having it loop back to Winnipeg, I never even dreamed of that.”

What are empathy toys?

Time Magazine said 21 Toys’ empathy toy is “shaping the classrooms of the future.” So what exactly is it?

A series of pieces are laid on a table, each with distinct angles, textures and shapes. Two participants are blindfolded while a third person assembles the toy in a manner of their choosing. One participant is tasked with feeling around the assembled toy and describing it to their partner so that they can assemble their toy to match.

The shapes and construction of the individual pieces means there any number of ways the puzzle can be put together.

Twenty One Toys is currently in production of a failure toy, which aims to teach kids that “failure is a part of learning.”

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